It is sometimes necessary to test the performance of attachment joints. For example, in the aircraft industry, a variety of attachments such as, without limitation, stanchions, seats, partitions and other fixtures may be attached to either the top or the bottom of beams that support cargo or cabin floors. These attachments may be connected to the floor beam by various types of attachment hardware, such as, without limitation, seat tracks which are used to mount passenger seats on the floor beams. The floor beams may comprise a pair of caps connected by a web that may be either substantially straight and flat along the length of the beam, or contain non-flat and/or undulating sections. Beams having non-flat and/or undulating webs may also be known as corrugated beams, referring to the corrugated-like shape of the web.
In the past, in order to test hardware joints between an attachment and a corrugated metal floor beam, the floor beam and the attachment were connected through test fixtures to a load test machine which applied force to the floor beam that loaded the web in shear. The test fixtures, which were specially fabricated for each load test, were permanently attached to a cap and/or the corrugated metal web of the beam, thus rendering them unsuitable for reuse. The irregular shape of the corrugated web made it necessary to weld flat plates to short sections of the web in order to connect the web to the load test machine. Following a load test, the plates were not easily removed for possible reuse because they were welded to the web. Accordingly, a fresh set of plates had to be fabricated and fitted for each new load test.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method and test fixture for testing joints between attachments and beams which allow reuse of test fixture in order to reduce test cycle time, labor and materials. It would also be desirable to provide a method and test fixture that allows a moment to be applied about the attachment, as the floor beam is being shear loaded during a load test.